TY - JOUR
T1 - Mindful feeding
T2 - A pathway between parenting style and child eating behaviors
AU - Goodman, Lynnel C.
AU - Roberts, Lindsey T.
AU - Musher-Eizenman, Dara R.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2020/1
Y1 - 2020/1
N2 - Certain child eating behaviors (e.g., food fussiness, emotional overeating, and disruptive mealtime behaviors) can create challenges for caregivers and result in short- and long-term health consequences (e.g., lower fruit and vegetable intake, a deficiency of essential nutrients, greater intake of energy-dense foods and sugary beverages, and/or higher BMI) for the children. The role of mindful feeding—cultivating a present-centered awareness in the feeding context to increase parents’ awareness of their own responsive (and non-responsive) feeding behaviors—has not been explored as it relates to parenting and children's problematic eating behaviors. The objective of this study was to understand whether the relations between parenting style and child eating behaviors often documented in the literature are mediated by mindful feeding. Using self-reports from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) of 496 mothers and fathers of young children (age 2–7 years old), we explored whether mindful feeding mediates the relation between parenting style and child eating behaviors. As hypothesized, authoritative parenting was related to higher rates of mindful feeding (β = .16, 95% C.I. [.05, .18]), while authoritarian (β = −.34, 95% C.I. [-.32, -.17]) and permissive parenting (β = -.15, 95% C.I. [-.18, -.05]) were related to lower rates of mindful feeding. Mindful feeding mediated the relation between each parenting style and each child eating behavior (i.e., food fussiness, problematic mealtime behaviors, and emotional overeating). These findings suggest that that mindful feeding may be a promising new construct, and its relation to feeding interventions aimed at improving problematic child eating behaviors should be further evaluated.
AB - Certain child eating behaviors (e.g., food fussiness, emotional overeating, and disruptive mealtime behaviors) can create challenges for caregivers and result in short- and long-term health consequences (e.g., lower fruit and vegetable intake, a deficiency of essential nutrients, greater intake of energy-dense foods and sugary beverages, and/or higher BMI) for the children. The role of mindful feeding—cultivating a present-centered awareness in the feeding context to increase parents’ awareness of their own responsive (and non-responsive) feeding behaviors—has not been explored as it relates to parenting and children's problematic eating behaviors. The objective of this study was to understand whether the relations between parenting style and child eating behaviors often documented in the literature are mediated by mindful feeding. Using self-reports from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) of 496 mothers and fathers of young children (age 2–7 years old), we explored whether mindful feeding mediates the relation between parenting style and child eating behaviors. As hypothesized, authoritative parenting was related to higher rates of mindful feeding (β = .16, 95% C.I. [.05, .18]), while authoritarian (β = −.34, 95% C.I. [-.32, -.17]) and permissive parenting (β = -.15, 95% C.I. [-.18, -.05]) were related to lower rates of mindful feeding. Mindful feeding mediated the relation between each parenting style and each child eating behavior (i.e., food fussiness, problematic mealtime behaviors, and emotional overeating). These findings suggest that that mindful feeding may be a promising new construct, and its relation to feeding interventions aimed at improving problematic child eating behaviors should be further evaluated.
KW - Child eating behavior
KW - Feeding
KW - Mindfulness
KW - Parenting
KW - Parenting style
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U2 - 10.1016/j.eatbeh.2019.101335
DO - 10.1016/j.eatbeh.2019.101335
M3 - Article
C2 - 31760367
AN - SCOPUS:85075197656
SN - 1471-0153
VL - 36
JO - Eating Behaviors
JF - Eating Behaviors
M1 - 101335
ER -